# WorldKickz

Meet The Sole of New York City

Andre McDonnell an extraordinary man who started a non-profit organization, “It’s From The Sole,” which he goes around giving pairs of shoes to New York City’s homeless citizens. This all started when he was playing basketball one day in 2012 when he saw a homeless man without shoes. Which he took his new kicks off his feet and gifted them to the man. Now since he started his organization he had given away 7,000 pairs of shoes by relying on donations and gifts. McDonnell and three volunteers always make rounds at Port Authority, New York Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal giving away 20-30 pairs each run.

Andre stated:

“This is the city with the biggest sneaker culture in the world. We have an abundance of sneakers here. There’s 60,000 homeless people in New York City. What we want to do is use sneakers to help,”

“I was kind of nervous in a way [at first] because I didn’t know how to interact with them. I forgot that they were human just like me and just like you…they’ve just probably been in situations that got them in the condition that they are. They just need a little bit of help. We need a little bit of help too.”

Andre Mcdonnell

He is trying to grow the organization to help more people in the city. So head over to ItsFromTheSole.org to learn more about how you can help.